As controversy swirls around the Catholic Church and noted atheists such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins call for Pope Benedict XVI's arrest for "crimes against humanity," TIME takes a look at history's most scandal-ridden Pontiffs

Benedict IX

By Laura FitzpatrickWednesday, Apr. 14, 2010

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Pope Benedict IX was not exactly beloved. St. Peter Damian, for one, called him a "demon from hell in the disguise of a priest." In his third book of Dialogues, Pope Victor III wrote of Benedict IX as having a "life as a pope so vile, so foul, so execrable, that I shudder to think of it." No wonder Benedict IX decided to stick it to all of them, resigning in 1045  and becoming the first man in history to sell the papacy. The buyer: the priest John Gratian (Pope Gregory VI). Benedict IX later refused to face charges of simony and was excommunicated.